Art in 2006

An online journal about visual art, the urban landscape and design. Mary Louise Schumacher, the Journal Sentinel's art and architecture critic, leads the discussion and a community of writers contribute to the dialogue.

It's impossible for me to see all of the art that Milwaukee has to offer in any given year, and of all that I've seen in 2006, some wonderful things have undoubtedly slipped my mind.

But it's been such a year - one worth recapping. From the worst kind of buzz to the best, two stories bookended 2006 and put Milwaukee in the international spotlight. They can be summarized in two words: Martinifest and Biedermeier.

But the stories that didn't circle the globe may have the most lasting impact. There were the departures, which left critical vacancies at major art institutions, and the new faces. It was a year of shake-ups, new ideas, good exhibits, not-so-good exhibits and lots of news.

Here's a rundown:

"Taxi" is an example of how Saul Leiter finds abstraction in urban scenes. The 1957 print was part of "In Living Color: Photographs by Saul Leiter" at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Best overall museum show: "In Living Color: Photographs by Saul Leiter." Not one of the Milwaukee Art Museum's bigger shows, but this first show of Leiter's color street photography, which has gone largely undiscovered by the art world, was a revelation. While we don't like to, and shouldn't, think of museums as rarefied institutions, one of the things museums sometimes do best is show us something previously unimaginable. Leiter's vision of postwar New York is that singular. Leiter's form of "found abstraction" takes the urban particulars of taxi cabs and storefront windows and dissolves them into fluid planes of color and rhythmic, repeating patterns. Read my review of the show and look at a slideshow of Leiter's works.

This interactive video installation of Manet's "Bar at the Folies Bergres" by Wafaa Bilal places viewers in the painting. Allyson Lassiter (in background) got in the picture this fall at the Dean Jensen Gallery.

Best overall gallery show: Wafaa Bilal at Dean Jensen. Bilal's video works placed viewers into a physical relationship with what appeared to be iconic artworks and the persistent art-historical questions associated with them. Read my review and watch videos of the exhibit.

Saddest moment: A tie - gallery owner Michael Lord goes to jail; Kent Mueller's gallery, KM art, closes. Read my story about the closing of KM art and the future of alternative art spaces in Milwaukee, and watch a slideshow of works by Francis Ford, KM art's final show.

Most intriguing new event: The Milwaukee International Art Fair at the Falcon Bowl. The down-to-earthness attracted established and alternative art galleries from around the world. Read my review of the fair and look

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Keep up with the art scene and trends in urban design with art and architecture critic Mary Louise Schumacher. Every week, you'll get the latest reviews, musings on architecture and her picks for what to do on the weekends.